A proper mage duel was one part training and one part strategic analysis. Not every mage fought the same way, and it was crucial to approach each opponent as a unique challenge with traits in common.

Flynn Sion was a light mage, and that came with several typical spells and tendencies. Light magic tended towards destructive bolts and beams, possessing enough strength to burn through flesh, bone, and non-magical armor alike. Light mages tended to avoid rigid constructs, including shields and favored offense overall due to the speed of their magic.

Blinding flashes and illusions also fell under the umbrella of auxiliary light magic, though I doubted Flynn had enough training to pull off the latter. The young mage also claimed to be a healer, a common but not exclusive light mage ability. Again, I suspected he could not heal during combat, but assuming he could was best.

Beyond that, Julian only had smattering information about the Sion family and their abilities. While they tended to be light mages, this was not a guarantee, and nothing he knew told me enough about what to expect. Even Duke Sion was a relatively standard light mage. An exceedingly powerful one with near-instant spellcasting and perfect control, but not a creative mage.

I wondered if I had taken up an impossible bet but cast aside those worries after a few seconds. They would only slow me down, and it was past the point of regrets either way. If I failed, then I would learn.

Winning the duel meant I needed to improve four aspects of my magic: offense, defense, speed, and auxiliary skills. Ideally, I would work on all four, but at an absolute minimum, I needed to hone two within a week.

The first I chose was my offense.

It took me only seconds to conjure a Mana Bolt. The spell was passable, bordering on decent. Aether granted me disproportionate raw power, which, combined with my Haze mana, would only grow greater. I could match Flynn's Mist-stage magic, and even though my reserves looked shrunken, I could sense that my stamina was as good or better already.

But I could still find three flaws with my spell, three too many in my eyes.

First, each bolt did not do enough for how much mana they consumed. They were potent attacks, sure, but I could only throw a dozen and a half, which did not go far in a fight.

Second, gathering, compressing, aiming, and throwing a bolt too long in a pitched battle. My recent battles against both boar and monster had shown that I would not always have the time to carefully prepare a spell.

Third, partially thanks to the second flaw, Mana Bolt was only viable at about thirty-foot ranges. Any closer, I would take too long to cast it. Any further, and I might miss, or the spell might fall apart mid-flight.

I could think of several modifications and workarounds, including using my wand, but I had yet to decide which worked best. Wands felt too close to the style my original self had favored, which I knew failed in the future. Other changes solved one problem only to introduce new ones that might make my altered spell worse, not better.

My first choice was to progress further on creating multiple projectiles. A swarm of bolts would remove any need for refined aim or perfect control. I could rain down dozens of flesh-rending blasts strong enough to punch through bodies, which had a certain flashy appeal.

It was also hideously inefficient. That version would burn through my entire core within three casts and take several times as long to form. While it sounded perfect for a war mage destroying reinforced positions or devastating armies, it was far less effective in single combat.

Next, I investigated altering the shape of my Mana Bolt into something like a point or spiral. Both would increase lethality for a moderate increase in casting time and stamina drain. I discarded the idea for now but set it aside for Leon's magic.

Homing projectiles were popular but required months of purposeful training to perfect. Another common choice was reusable projectiles, which required expert control and sizable reserves to keep them stable and whole even on repeated impacts. I set aside both, noting them for future investigation.

I even considered a novel modification that created a purposefully unstable shell around an over-compressed, dense mana construct. On impact, that shell failed, and the energy escaped with dramatic results. While it was very effective, it also required surprising skill and tended to shorten mage lifespans.

For several hours, I turned over and examined a dozen options and routes, setting aside some for future examination and noted others as dead ends. Many held promise, but none would work in time for the duel. In fact, most required months to see actual results.

Finally, with all other options discarded, I resigned myself to just using my wand. While it would make my martial skills pointless and felt too similar to my original self's fighting style, it was the wisest choice. The most predictable as well, but there was nothing to be done there.

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I gingerly stood to stretch my legs, but as I did so, my eyes fell on the spears leaning against the cave wall. My original plan was to use them as a distraction, a red herring of sorts, but something occurred to me. Instead of picking up my spatial pouch, I grabbed one of the spears.

It was a standard Ferren guard spear, a smooth, dark wooden shaft with a triangular steel point, sturdy and practical but hardly remarkable. I turned it over, checking the balance before angling the tip to catch the torchlight. An idea had begun to form, and I set the spear down before sitting beside it and grabbing my notebook.

As a rule, I wanted to avoid fighting as my original self had. He had lost, after all, and avoiding his fate meant avoiding the paths he walked. Still, he was an Archmagus. Maybe the trick was less about copying outright and more about adapting aspects of his style for my own.

I flipped to an empty page in my notebook and began writing, first copying the wand's runes. Wands, staves, and other magical foci tended to do one of two things. The first used enchantments to direct mana, reducing loss and improving efficacy. My own was one such example, and they were universally favored as a quick and easy tool.

The second category used materials that gathered and stored mana of their own. These were rare, costing a princely sum and tending to travel through families for generations, but could do absolutely monstrous things in the right hands.

I planned to copy my wand's runes and make a modified enchantment to turn my spear into the first type of focus. If I was right, I could streamline the casting process, letting me pour mana into and around my speartip, reducing the mental strain and speeding the process.

A part of me, the vain and prideful part, hated that I needed a tool-no, a crutch to win. Then again, I would have knowledge beyond most first years when I won, so I set aside that silly notion of an honorable win.

It took me several hours to sketch the runes, decipher their plausible function, and create a few crude recreations of the wand's enchantment. I pulled from some of my classes, readings, and even Leon's bow. Finally, I had something workable.

I would not call it an enchantment. That was giving me entirely too much credit. It was clunky, inefficient, and likely would fail, but I needed to start somewhere.

It took me entirely too long to get to Aresford, find the sole shop selling enchanting materials, barter for what I needed, and return to the cave. I occupied any spare time checking over my design and practicing my sensory abilities with a focus on short-range precision.

Finally, I was back in my cave, ready to test my idea.

Creating an actual enchantment rather than the crude faux-tracking ones I had made in the forest tended to use a specialized carving tool, not a dagger. These would have hardened points that could slice through anything, and a good enchanter was as much a calligrapher as they were a mage.

The first step was always creating the rune. Ferren magic stressed using a standardized system with particular runes for everything, from fire and water to shields, light, and a hundred other words and concepts. This was a suggestion, though, and I could ignore it...so I did. The less Flynn knew what I had planned, the better.

My first rune stood for "gather" or "absorb." It was a common choice for nearly any active enchantment requiring mana from the user, and I had already carved it hundreds of times. I moved confidently as I worked, even as I altered the symbol from blocky to a more curved and angular rune.

The second and third followed, standing for "hold" or "contain" and "shape" or "control." As I worked, metal shavings formed a small pile on the rocky floor. I ignored them and worked to keep the runes at a consistent depth, enough to hold the substrate but not too far, or the weapon might break on first use.

When I finished, I set aside the carving tool and picked up a small stoppered glass vial filled with a silver liquid.

After carving the rune, a mage had to attach a substrate to the symbol. This material conducted the mana to drive the enchantment and tended to be either copper, silver, gold, or platinum, and was the initial reason we used those metals for currency.

While I could have melted and poured pure silver or gold into the runes, that would have been archaic and clumsy. Modern enchanting used liquid metal alloys, which remained fluid at room temperatures, formed a natural level and bonded to steel and iron on contact.

I double-checked the runes for flaws, then unstoppered the first vial and tilted it, allowing a thin trickle of silver to flow into the first rune. Immediately, there was a soft sizzling noise, and faint wisps of smoke rose as the material melted the surface of the steel spearpoint before forming a firm bond.

After repeating the process with the other two runes, I moved to the third and final step, which was actually enchanting the damn thing. All magic, titanic to minute, fantastical or mundane, revolved around willpower, and this was no different.

I placed my hand on the spearpoint and closed my eyes before focusing. In my mind, I imagined a spear with the point ablaze in emerald light. That weapon sliced through shields and flesh alike, the mana surrounding it and forming an illusory point, hard as steel and sharp as a razor. And as I imagined and focused, I pushed mana into the runes.

My reserves drained like they had sprung a leak. The enchantment devoured my Aether with palpable hunger, and what started as a trickle became a river as I poured raw energy into the runes. I could feel my stamina ebb away, and finally, when only a third remained, the drain slowed and then stopped.

I pulled my hand back and opened my eyes to find the spear physically unchanged. The runes looked messier than I had hoped, and I could spot imperfections with the substrate pour, but they now glowed a faint green. A decent result, but I would prefer perfect and settle for excellent.

Perfect was the enemy of the good, though, and it was something I did not have the time to pursue.

I stood and twirled the spear in my hands, ignoring the knots in my muscles and the twinges in my side. My injuries were still healing, and though the potions and salves had helped speed my recovery, exercise was beyond me.

When I was satisfied that I had not re-injured anything, I settled into a basic combat stance and focused on my spear. I nearly triggered the enchantment, then paused and cast a Traveler's Shield just in case. The spear should be stable, but caution seemed prudent after the last few days.

With my safety ensured, I gathered mana and pushed it into the spear. It flowed along the shaft and into the spearpoint, which remained inert for several seconds. Soon, the runes began to glow a more vibrant green, and before my eyes, Aether bled out and surrounded the blade. It reshaped and formed a roughly triangular shape, maybe one-half again as long and wide as the steel spearpoint and resembling glowing green mists.

I frowned at the spear and nearly deactivated it out of sheer principle. My plan had been to form a refined version of my Mana Bolt around the tip, which combined reshaping the projectile into more of a blade with the idea of a reusable, stable mana construct.

This was...well, not terrible, but it was close. Still, if I wanted to improve it, there was only one way to proceed.

So, I walked to the corner where the other spears sat and settled into the same stance as before, driving the spearpoint into the stone wall. It left a noticeable slice in the stone, only an inch or two deep but still visible even in the gloom.

I blinked, then deactivated the spear and swapped it for a non-enchanted spear. A repeat test a few inches to the right left me with a slightly blunted spearpoint, stinging hands, and throbbing ribs, reminding me they were not ready for too much exercise yet.

But there was no mark on the wall, which meant my idea had merit. I just needed to refine the enchantment, which seemed a matter of time and practice. Likely weeks of both, but even a few days should produce a noticeable change.

Then I noticed the splintering along the spearshaft and the noticeable warping of the metal head and revised that to two flaws.

One problem was solved, and two more were revealed. The great struggle of a mage continued.